Although conventional communication is mostly Human to Human (H2H) communication performed between terminals of users via a base station, Machine to Machine (M2M) communication has become possible along with development of communication technology. The term ‘M2M communication’ refers to communication that is performed between electronic devices as the term states. Although, in a broad sense, the term ‘M2M communication’ refers to wired or wireless communication between electronic devices or communication between a device that is controlled by a human and a machine, the term has generally been used recently to indicate wireless communication between electronic devices, i.e., wireless communication between devices.
In the early 1990's when the M2M communication concept was introduced, M2M was considered a concept such as remote control or telematics and associated markets were greatly limited. However, in recent years, M2M communication has been continuously rapidly developed, creating a new market that is attracting domestic and global attention. Especially, M2M communication has exerted a great influence upon fields such as Point Of Sale (POS) and fleet management in the security-related application market and a smart meter for automatically measuring the amount of consumed heat or electricity, measuring an operating time of construction equipment and facilities, and remote monitoring of machines and facilities. In the future, M2M communication will be used for a wider variety of purposes, in combination with existing mobile communication and wireless high-speed Internet or low-power communication solutions such as Wi-Fi and ZigBee, and will no longer be limited to the B2B market and will expand its application field into the B2C market.
In the M2M communication era, all machines equipped with a SIM card can transmit and receive data such that it is possible to remotely manage and control all such machines. For example, the field of application of M2M communication technology is greatly broad such that M2M communication technology can be used for a great number of devices and equipment such as cars, trucks, trains, containers, vending machines, and gas tanks.
The power consumption problem is very important for the M2M device due to the characteristics of the M2M device. Thus, the M2M device reports to the base station in a long-term manner or is triggered by an event to report to the base station. That is, while the M2M device mostly remains in an idle state, the M2M device may be awoken into an active state at intervals of a long period or when an event has occurred. Most M2M devices have low mobility or have no mobility (i.e., are stationary). As the number of stationary M2M device application types persistently increases, a very large number of such M2M devices will become present in the same base station.
One feature of the M2M device is a time-controlled operation. Time-controlled traffic implies absence of ‘ad-hoc’ packet transmission to or from an M2M device. The system may support time-controlled operation and the M2M device may transmit or receive data only within a predefined time interval. Most M2M applications include a portion corresponding to time-controlled traffic. M2M applications differ only in the occupancy ratio of time-controlled traffic to ad-hoc traffic.
Another feature of the M2M device is low mobility or no mobility. That is, the M2M device may remain stationary for a long time. The system can simplify or optimize mobility-related operations for specific M2M applications having fixed positions such as applications for secured access and surveillance, public safety, payment, remote maintenance and control, and metering.
However, no studies have been conducted on a method of transmitting data from an M2M device taking into consideration such characteristics.